In reply to rslifkin :
Correct.
Have you ever checked the price of explosion proof motors?
Every utility contractor that ever needs to climb in a ditch or a confined space is already fully setup, and they are not gonna run out and buy high priced explosion proof electric motors to do the same job they already have the equipment to do (and run the risk of dead batteries with no where to plug them in to recharge).
It makes no sense.
Keith Tanner said:My proposed "substation in a box" would probably be best owned by the utilities and rented to the job. Utilities love to charge for stuff like this. I'll wager a week of Paul's wages that the US military already has yards of them painted tan.
Will something like this happen quickly? No. During Paul's lifetime? Depends on how healthy his choices are :) I can see how it could happen if it turns out that the equipment has other redeeming abilities. It'll be the market that drives it, if something like the F150EV turns out to have advantages that industry decides can be scaled up, the rest will follow.
I've been involved in the design of some of them but I'm not sure that it makes sense to burn fuel to charge batteries to avoid burning fuel. It's true that there are efficiencies to running the engine at a steady state but that seems like a roundabout way to get power to the ground.
I'm pretty confident that somewhere there's at least one computer running the numbers on that and other scenarios.
I wasn't thinking a generator, but a substation that can tap the grid and provide decent power delivery and maybe charging capability easily. The thing at the end of the wires, not the start of the wires. My understanding is the limitation of power at a lot of construction sites isn't the distance to power but getting access to what's already nearby - panels, etc. This is not necessarily true in the middle of Africa, I'm thinking of North America and Europe.
Whatever, just a general thought on how some of these problems are more political/financial than technical. Some problems remain because we don't have a way, some problems remain because we don't have enough of a will. And willpower does take the form of money :)
Keith Tanner said:I wasn't thinking a generator, but a substation that can tap the grid and provide decent power delivery and maybe charging capability easily. The thing at the end of the wires, not the start of the wires. My understanding is the limitation of power at a lot of construction sites isn't the distance to power but getting access to what's already nearby - panels, etc. This is not necessarily true in the middle of Africa, I'm thinking of North America and Europe.
Whatever, just a general thought on how some of these problems are more political/financial than technical. Some problems remain because we don't have a way, some problems remain because we don't have enough of a will. And willpower does take the form of money :)
Ah. I gotcha. And, yes, I agree that a lot of the hurdles are political/financial rather than technical.
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